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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Quest West

I think the article gives the wrong impression of this camp. It's not just "an atheist camp". It's so much more than that. It's a camp for free-thought, science, logic, morality, ethics, and free expression. I'm curious why the author didn't stress those characteristics and stated missions of the camp?

If you really want an interesting read, check out the comments on the article.

In the article itself, I noticed the word atheist appeared six times. However, agnostic appeared only once when they were discussing the Pew Forum results. This in spite of each camper that was actually interviewed giving a description that would describe them as agnostic.

Methinks the article was written just to get a bunch of comments on it.

Presumably it's referred to as an "atheist camp" rather than a "free-thought, science, logic, morality, ethics, and free expression camp" (which would be more accurate) because typing "atheist" is an awful lot easier than typing "free-thought, science, logic, morality, ethics, and free expression".

Having just typed it twice, I can see why they went the way they did, especially as (as Berlzebub points out) they do use the word atheist six times.

Commentators probably reflect the community in Sacramento which, AFAIK, is right-leaning - so no surprise there.

In any event, the article (this and others like it) is a win-win for everyone: public at large gets exposed to non-belief, freethought, atheism, etc.; that, in turn, makes these more "acceptable" in the American society. Finally, commentators' negativity and hate could be used as a teachable moment for our children ("know your opponent" and don't be like them).

Off-topic: today at lunch saw NYC Atheists bus advertisement: "You don't have to believe in god to be a moral person". Pasted on the whole bus side. Nice!

The Enlightenment, of course, was not really anything new. The same attitude, the same emphasis on autonomy, was present two thousand years earlier in Greek philosophy, four hundred years earlier among the Renaissance humanists, and has existed whenever and wherever people have tried to carry on the work of the mind without God. From a biblical viewpoint, it is simply the attitude of unbelief. It's the attitude that says "My mind is my own."

Part 1 of that essay is well worth a read. It's scarier than Jesus Camp.